1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention are in the field of system analysis, and more specifically, relate to system state analysis tools.
2. Description of Related Art
System crashes as a result of faulty software are usually detected by the operating system. The operating system typically saves the state of system memory in a memory dump file. A debugger tool is used off-line to analyze such memory dump files. In the cases where the crashes are caused by hardware failures, memory dump file containing information regarding the state of the system memory cannot be used for the analysis since it is the state of the system component elements, not the state of the system memory, that is required. This state of the system is usually represented by the contents of the registers and/or storage elements relevant to the operation of the system. For large systems, the core of the hardware architecture may include a large number of processors, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc. In large systems, the system state may be accessed through various means by a system maintenance processor. The system maintenance processor organizes the state into panels as the hardware state is taken. This state is then saved into a large text file called a panel dump file. A panel is a grouping of state bits that logically work together.
Examining the contents of the panel dump file to obtain meaningful interpretation of the system state is a challenge. Existing techniques for analysis of the system state has a number of drawbacks. An expert typically uses some text editing tool and search manually through the panel dump file for pertinent and helpful data. The procedure requires a high level of expertise and is very time-consuming and error-prone.